All in or patchwork?

LCC Board of Trustees decision on college’s pool looms; President Knight recommends “a substantial expenditure” to upgrade it or close it

Lansing Community College PresidentBrent Knight wants to go all-in on the college’s 35-year-old, six-lanepool. That is, he wants to spend about $5 million to either completelyrevamp the facility or convert it to something else.

Knight’s position on keeping orrepurposing the pool is in direct opposition to some LCC staff, facultyand other pool supporters who suggest upgrades can be made in apatchwork fashion for a couple hundred thousand dollars.

“The job of president for any college isto think about the long-term issues and long-term needs of thecollege,” Knight said last week in an interview. “And so I continue notto think well of a patchwork (fix) because all I’m doing then — as theyoften say — is kicking the can down the road. I don’t think well ofthat in general. … I’m not inclined to do a get-by type of fix.”

Knight went on to call a wholesalerenovation of the pool “a major expenditure.” A pool study done in 2008and 2009 said it would cost about $4.5 million to renovate everythingfrom drains and gutters to flooring and windows. Staff from LCC’sPhysical Fitness and Wellness Department countered with a price tagless than $200,000 for necessary renovations. In April, departmentpersonnel and administration officials sat down and compromised on a$3.5 million project, to take place in two phases, but that scales backsome of the administration’s earlier plans. A Livonia-based consultanthas provided the estimates.

Knight’s recommendation is not a finaldecision — that falls with the Board of Trustees. But supporters of thepatchwork fixes fear Knight’s position could mean the elimination ofthe pool and, subsequently, the school’s aquatics program.

Linda Koning, chairwoman of the PhysicalFitness and Wellness Department, supports a patchwork approach becauseshe said a full-scale renovation would lead to canceled classes.There’s no way it could be completely renovated without interferingwith aquatics courses, she said.

“We believe the pool is functioning safely,” she said. “We would really hate to see our classes not happening.”

Knight said a complete renovation “wouldlikely be debt incurred by the college, paid off over 15, 20 years,”but that it “would have a minimal impact on tuition in any case.”

It’s unclear what the space would beused for if the board votes to repurpose the facility. “Just like theidea about how much it would cost, there are many ideas about what youcould do (if it wasn’t a pool),” Knight said.

Supporters of the patchwork plan are putting together a recommendation based on fundraising to help cover expenses, Koning said.

Knight said he doesn’t support “closingthe pool and boarding it up” in the meantime. He denied that closingthe pool would be the first step of reorganizing the entire PhysicalFitness and Wellness Department. “For me, this is about the swimmingpool. It’s nearing the end of its life.”

Knight said he will “hopefully” have hisfull recommendation ready for the Board of Trustees to vote on inJanuary. Board Chairman Larry Meyer said the board has not reached adecision on the issue and that it would be “inappropriate to comment”at this point.

Knight said “an important statistic in the whole conversation” is how much the pool is actually used.

Pool staff report that about 478swimmers use the pool each week, Ellen Jones, director of publicaffairs for LCC, said in an e-mail.

Comparatively, the Parkwood YMCAfacility in East Lansing sees 125 unique swimmers a day, “more onweekends or when we schedule a birthday party,” Jon Sporer, programdirector at the Parkwood YMCA, said in an e-mail. The number grows by50 to 75 during the summer, he added.

Other pools in the area include fourpublic pools run by the city of Lansing (two of which are open onlyduring summer), three YMCA facilities, three at Michigan StateUniversity that are closed to the public during fall and springsemesters and at the Hannah Community Center in East Lansing, which isopen to residents and non-residents.

Evelyn Pech, who works at Lansing’sSouthside Community Center, said about 100 people use the pool a weekin winter months, while upward of 700 people use the city’s swimmingfacilities per day during the summer. (That includes the outdoor poolsat Moores and Hunter parks. A fourth pool at the Beekman Center is usedfor classes only, Pech said.) Figures from these other facilities couldnot be obtained.

“We understand that the pool is 35 yearsold and does need to be renovated. We also know that the pool is viablefor many years,” Koning said. “To shut it down I think would beunfortunate.”